The Raven, Leos Klein: The Vermilion Silhouette
by Obsidian Locust
Summary: An extended look at the history of the events in Armored Core; there is a lot of plot here for the sake of organizing the original ideas of the From Software team, into one coherent story. There is more original devotion on my part, to Leos Klein.


  
  
The Raven, Leos Klein: The Vermilion Silhouette  
(Based upon the Armored Core™ series by From Software)  
  
_Rejected by the blue skies_, humanity stood on the edge of extinction after the final war between the nations known as the Great Destruction. They left the surface of Earth a scorched and barren shell of its former self, and forced themselves underground into subterranean cities originally designed to solve the growing problems of over population. Many decades passed as the small populous of survivors proliferated in hopes of allowing humanity to flourish once more. By the new century, the cities could no longer support the teaming numbers of humanity thrust upon them; decay began very rapidly. Since the time after the Great Destruction, the people of the subterranean cities scattered throughout the world no longer placed great faith in their governments. The very concept of what it meant to be a nation united under a single government died on the surface world, where a new ideal was born at every turn of the dawning sun. It was those same ideals that created the design behind the Great Destruction, which now only remained as whispers amongst the people. As always, there were those who held great power in their hands waiting to rise up and lead the people. As the human comedy never falters, those who wished to seize power and lead the people often had their own agendas in mind before the welfare of the people. It was then, in the time of turmoil in the subterranean cities that the Corporations rose and seized power. Where temporary governments and corrupt political figures failed to give the people what they needed to survive, the Corporations stepped in and removed the middleman. The Corporations witnessed the decay before them, so they began to expand the reaches of the cities, bringing new technologies allowing the underground populous to have access to untapped resources. In this new era, the people of the cities hailed the Corporations as their saviors and embraced the notion of a truly laissez- faire economy.  
All those hailed great saviors have a source for their power. In the eyes of the people, the Corporations were indeed their saviors, yet they were willing to blind themselves from the fact that these same saviors played key roles in the Great Destruction. The Corporations, those same captains of industry who provided countless nations on Old Earth with the ability to defend their ideals to their last gasping breathes. Not all of the Corporations survived the Great Destruction, only those with enough technical prowess and sheer cutthroat instincts to survive the business of death. The two greatest of the all the Corporations were Crome Industries and the Murakumo Millennium Group. Crome was a corporation based in one the most successful and largest subterranean cities called Isaac City. Crome had an iron grip over the production and distribution of arms and industrial products; not to mention, they veritably controlled almost every aspect of peoples' lives. Very few people dared to ever utter a public falsehood (or truth) against Crome's tyrannical reign lest their power should come down upon the families and friends of the objector. The Murakumo Millennium Group was virtually the only other Corporation standing in the way of Crome's ambition of total monopolistic rule. Murakumo gained wide praise for its streamline technology, which people considered by far more advanced than Crome's in the subterranean cities east of Isaac City. When Murakumo had proven its power within the confines of its own various city districts, they sought the need for expansion. It was then when Murakumo turned an ambitious gaze at the boundaries of Isaac City, much like when the Caesar of Old Earth first witnessed the British Isles. Much like the warriors of Rome, the Corporations had their own Centurions, their own dreaded Phalanx. The Armored Cores, one hundred ton titans who were in part responsible for much of the destruction that desolated the cities of Old Earth before the Great Destruction. These machines were the extensions of the humans inside who piloted them. It was as if a human being donned a fifty-foot suit of armor and whatever actions the pilot performed inside the steel knight would mimic. The concept of man and machine had come full-circle; never in the history of human design has there ever been forged such a double-edged sword of technology as the AC. The AC could do ANYTHING; it could destroy an entire squadron of tanks and planes alike. ACs could tear through jetfighters as if they were paper kites, and exceed their speeds. If a tank fired a shell, the pilot would commence the AC to simply dash-boost out of the way. The AC was as graceful as an ice skater but with all the power and ferocity of an ancient knight, armed to the teeth with an assortment of deadly weapons at its disposal. In fact, the only thing that could stand up to an AC was another AC; it was then that the Armored Core Units that belonged to Crome and Murakumo fought each other on the battle ground that was Isaac City. Hundreds of ACs filled the ground and cavern covered skies while the people on the streets ran for cover inside buildings that were destined for destruction in the onslaught. The battle raged out of control, and soon neighboring subterranean cities across the sub-continents of the world sided with the Corporations to protect their own financial and economic futures. Another great trouble to many of the cities was dwindling food and resources; even after all the technological advancements human beings still required the room to expand. Every city across the sub-continents sided with Crome or Murakumo with the hopes that their Corporation would dominate the other. They had no choice but to take sides, lest they should bite the hand that fed them. The AC units of Murakumo and Crome had fought each other for control of the cities for an unprecedented thirty years. The thirty years, or Deep Earth War, was the single greatest human campaign in the history of wars. The war ended with the destruction of the sought after prize which had instigated the entire war, Isaac City. Crome and Murakumo executives had met at the half-destroyed headquarters of Crome Industries in Isaac City, where they signed the Isaac Treaty officially ending the thirty-year conflict. A cease-fire committee composed of ex-Crome and Murakumo AC unit commanders came into order to make certain that proper measures were taken to ensure that humanity had any kind of a future to look forward to. The Corporations unanimously called for an armistice until such a time that would allow the cities to rebuild after the desolation. During that timeframe, however, the atmosphere and terrain of the surface world began to heal after it had been laid waste to during the Great Destruction. Decades later after which the armistice was still in effect, both Crome and Murakumo found that their financial ventures would be better spent trying to bring humanity back to the blue skies of Old Earth. The Corporations took this action with the great revelation that humanity had all but exhausted the resources of the subterranean world. When humanity returned to the surface world, they found that the face of the Earth had changed. None of the maps that outlined the nations' boundaries prior to the Great Destruction matched the new continental shapes that encircled the planet. The Corporations and the rest of the citizens of the subterranean cities now understood the grandeur of the mistakes their ancestors had made nearly two centuries ago; they vowed, all of them vowed that they would never let something like this happen again. Still, it remained to be seen if humanity could keep their oath this time. After the cease-fire committee had been dissolved the Corporations and the remaining commanding officers of the AC forces established the Earth Government in an attempt to regulate and curb the business practices of the Corporations. Like the governments of old, however, there was always some way around Earth Government's regulations since they were composed of former Corporate agents anyway. Crome Industries and the remaining citizens of Isaac City had sought to set up a new city in the vicinity of a half sunken continent several miles above the location of their ruined city. The elder citizens amongst the subterranean population were young enough to remember their forebears speaking of a civilization called America. Whatever lingering thread of this civilization's ideals remained, died with the elders in the undertow of time. Over the next several decades the Corporations had undergone a worldwide reconstruction of the surface world, as well as some reorganization within the Corporations' own economic identities. Emeraude was born from its parent company of Crome Industries, while Zio Matrix was born from the Murakumo Millennium Group. The former Corporate executives of both Crome and Murakumo went on to pursue more noble careers in the Earth Government as they were worn down by the age old struggle for competitive domination. The former execs were persecuted by their former peers and hailed as hypocrites throughout the Corporate community. The execs did not care; they felt that it was never too late to become idealists.  
Emeraude and the former citizens of Isaac City united in celebration as Neo Isaac was born in the new Earth Year of 217 A.G.D. Even when there was much to celebrate about, the competition between the Corporations never really ceased to end. While Emeraude and its citizens were united in celebration, Zio Matrix was busy with finishing up construction plans of Eyelet City in the eastern continents, in the midst of where Europe and Asia once stood. Zio Matrix kept busy with the decryption of data gathered from a fallen earth satellite that their reconnaissance teams had recovered from the impact site. The satellite was property of some Corporation called Fostex, a name that dates back prior to the Great Destruction. Apparently, Fostex was the Corporation responsible for the initial launching of unmanned AI robots that it dispatched to Mars with the hopes of terraforming the planet.  
In 220 A.G.D., Zio Matrix had finished constructing deep space vessels capable of sub-light speeds. Several months afterwards, Zio Matrix dispatched the vessels with a squadron of AC units without Emeraude's knowledge. Because Zio Matrix had ceased their plan of winning over Isaac City and its successor, Emeraude had let its guard down never considering what Zio Matrix had up their sleeve. The AC Units descended to the Martian terrain in insertion pods capable of penetrating the atmosphere while protecting the ACs inside. The reconnaissance team found to their surprise and everybody else's, a terraformed Mars. There was a blue sky on Mars, vegetation, grasslands, and oceans that teamed with animals that were somehow transplanted from Earth prior to the Great Destruction. The research scientists believed that Fostex must have included the genetic coding of many forms of species in the launch probes that it initially sent.  
The ACUs began an investigation on the nature of the Terraformed Mars they saw before them. Before they could even begin their investigation, a vast number of machines surrounded them. They were arachnid-like in their posture and their behavior, and they seemed to be moving with a singular conscious mind. They almost seemed alive, as if beyond the technological and anything that nature could have produced. One of the AC pilots was a scientist by the name of Margo Jameson, whose AC was specifically outfitted with research devices in order to evaluate the Martian surface. She piloted a thin midnight blue colored AC unit with quadrupedal legs, and little arms adorned with dishes and antennae. She conducted an analysis of the arachnid-like machines, and determined them to be an evolved form of the AI robots that Fostex had originally sent centuries ago. She could not account for their evolution based upon the original schematics she had studied from Fostex's data core.  
Ryan Templeton was the newest of Zio Matrix's pilots; he had belonged to the Earth Government forces for a short time but decided that the real money was made working for the Corporations. He had experience as a Peacekeeper, yet he was never fully prepared for a situation in which all the AC pilots knew that they were surrounded. Much like Margo's AC that was merely equipped for conductive analysis, Ryan's own AC only carried a single semi-automatic handgun and a weak energy shield. It was a tall AC, forest green in color with elongated human-style legs but adequately mid- sized arms. Ryan's AC kept twitching its limbs, turning this way and that, mimicking every movement that the man inside was making.  
Of the AC Unit, Zio Matrix headquarters gave Leos Klein command authorization of the mission, although their staff did not officially employ him. He was a mercenary Armored Core, a "Raven" as they called them. Not any mercenary AC could just be dubbed a Raven; it was an earned title, much like being knighted by a king in the history of Old Earth. Klein, like many of those ACs who earned the name Raven, had been a contender in the Arena. The Arena was part of the underground world of mercenary ACs, where the pilots pitted their own ACs against each other in the hopes of winning the champion title of "Nine breaker." The Corporations, like the senators and emperors of Rome from Old Earth, condoned the Arena, as there was a profit to be made from the lives of the pilots who fought for money, glory, and sometimes their freedom.  
Leos Klein was essentially born into his world that became the Arena. In the time of the Deep Earth War, Klein was one of many children who had been genetically engineered during conception to age half the amount of time a normal human being ages. The Corporations at the time had performed this procedure on many of the parents who they paid to carry a genetically advanced human being in the mother's womb. Many couples, some single women, had no choice but to accept the Corporations' "generous offer," since times were bad for all citizens due to lack of food and resources. The parents were often promised that the children were being offered a life better than their own, and many parents were more than willing to go through with the procedure. When the couples finally made it to the Corporate owned hospitals to give birth, the children were taken away without explanation and the couple was ordered to not pursue the child lest something should happen to the couple or even their child.  
In the same cycle, the Corporations took Klein away from his parents, and when his parents tried to regain their child, they executed them without Klein's knowledge. As a young child, the Corporations told Klein that his parents died in an accident when there was an AC attack on Isaac City, and that they had mercifully rescued him. Crome and Murakumo, though enemies at each others' throats at the time of the Deep Earth War, found a common profit to be made from the appearance of AC Arena Combat. It was in the Arena that their individualistic financial ventures seemed to blend without boundaries. Arena Combat had been profitable for a long time, but over that course of time, too many Ravens had come and gone in the Arena because their agendas of making money and finding glory had been satiated. The Corporations knew that the people desired someone who could bring glory back to the Arena, someone who had the motivation to stay and fight and be the peoples' champion (while the Corporations cut a good profit from admissions and bets).  
The Arena had "adopted" Klein as a contender in the Arena where he was trained to pilot an AC at a very young age. Since he aged at half the speed normal human beings could, the Arena and Corporate execs knew that he would be able to receive twice the amount of training and experience than the average human could in a lifetime. Indeed, that was the aim of the Corporations since the plan's inception. Klein learned over time that the only way he would win his freedom would be to rise through the ranks of the AC Arena combatants, and become Nine breaker, Master of the Arena. The Corporations promised that once profits from attendance and bets started to fall with Klein as Nine breaker they would mercifully grant him his freedom. For once, the Corporations saw no profit in going back on their word, so they let Klein go. Indeed, they almost felt indebted to him for raking in the billions upon billions of credits over the course of forty Earth years. Klein won his freedom from the Arena and tried to live a normal life...for a time. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, "You can take the man out of the Arena, but you cannot take the Arena out of the man." Klein saw that there was no life waiting for him outside the one he had just left, so after he had retired his title as Nine breaker he became a Raven. Klein joined the Raven's Nest, a mercenary body that operated outside the jurisdiction of the Earth Government and the Corporations. Unless of course they needed a hired gun to take out the opposition, in which case a Raven was already to sign up...for a price. It was then that Zio Matrix knew well before hand that if they would send ACs to Mars they would have to acquire the former Nine breaker. There was Klein with Margo and Ryan surrounded by the arachnid-like machines that were gathering ever closer. Margo ascertained that the machines seemed to be merely studying them, since they probably have never encountered life forms outside their own. Ryan sweated profusely inside his AC; he thought that his radiator was malfunctioning and that the temperature was rising. His AC waddled back and forth ceaselessly; Klein took notice of Ryan's behavior and ordered him to hold his ground until he instructed him further. Margo drew the party's attention as she claimed that one of the machines was trying to communicate with her AC. For all the research equipment that she mounted on her AC, Margo could not decipher the cryptic message that the machines transmitted. One of the machines drew close to Ryan's AC, and the AC drew back at Ryan's whim and opened fire. The shell from Ryan's gun stuck the machine in the head and it flipped over on its backside, while its legs kicked aimlessly in the air. The machine stopped moving and the other machines seemed to simultaneously draw back based on some kind of instinctual knowledge between them. The machine that had communicated with Margo's AC had ceased transmission, while Klein cursed Ryan out for his hasty action. The machines stopped withdrawing and stood in a seemingly unbreakable circle around the ACs. Klein recognized this sort of stratagem before when his opponents surrounded him once in the Arena during team combat. He ordered his AC comrades to activate their boosters immediately, and the squadron obeyed his command. They all shot up in the air like roman candles that the people ignited during some sort of celebration in the times of Old Earth. However, the ACs knew that their boosters could not hold out forever, and that the only way out was to wait for the pickup. They were several hundred feet above what appeared to be an endless swarm of arachnid-like machines below, and they were looking for a place to touch down. Soon enough, however, the ACs' generators could no longer sustain booster thrust and the generators shut down, going into a recharging mode. Both Klein's and Margo's ACs began to drop to the surface, each of the pilots within was anticipating that their generators would be fully recharged in time to level off their rate of descent. Klein was ready for anything and Margo learned of Klein's legacy and was not afraid to put her life in his hands. Ryan's AC was still boosting into the air; his boosters had a slightly lower efficiency output, but greater capacitating ability in effect. Ryan was pushing his AC's generator to the limit with the thrusters as he tried to make it to the edge of a cliff that was just several feet above his location. Klein took notice of Ryan's endeavor but warned him to be careful with his energy consumption. Ryan ignored Klein's orders out of panic and went to the extreme of releasing the Limiter on his generator. Whenever an AC's generator reached its energy threshold, it would shut down and cut off the energy output in order to recharge. Ryan now deactivated the Limiter in which case he would push his generator to the brink. His AC propelled itself mercilessly through the air as Klein and Margo neared the surface anticipating the worst. Klein's AC was seen in action by many of the Arena spectators who watched him do battle over the years; it was one of the most recognizable forms to ever grace the Arena battlegrounds. It had thick, armor-clad barrel legs that connected to a Core (AC's torso) that was custom designed and built by Klein himself. The Core had a rounded chest that protruded outwards with two orb-shaped spheres that protruded from behind that made up the back of the torso. The AC's head unit was rounded and elongated towards the front, giving the head a protruding brow of sorts and it had a forthright chin, giving the AC an almost human quality. The very top of the head closely resembled the helmets that the Centurions wore in the history of Old Earth. His arms were just as armor-clad as his legs were, and it was those same arms whose weapons had destroyed countless ACs and Ravens inside and outside of the Arena. Klein had chosen to keep the outdated KARASAWA-MKA prototype laser rifle and his custom- built laser blade for the reason that they had never failed him; they had been with him since the beginning of his Arena days.  
Klein and Margo finally reached the Martian terrain and received a barrage of energy blasts that rained on them in broken patterns from the arachnids. The blasts from a single one of these enemies seemed to not have so much affect on an AC, but because there were so many it was enough to overwhelm even Klein's AC. Margo's AC was outgunned, so Klein tossed his KARASAWA rifle to her after she dropped her research equipment. Klein relied on his back mounted folding chain gun and missile launcher; he only used his laser blade when he exhausted his ammo or until it was absolutely necessary. Margo could not believe that this was the same Klein she had heard of who had massacred all those Ravens in the Arena; every other Raven she had worked with was never so quick to relinquish his arms, not even to save another's life.  
While Klein and Margo were fighting the arachnid machines below, Ryan had almost reached the towering cliff of the mountain. He had almost reached it when his generator had finally given out; one of the side effects of the Limit Release was that the generator would completely shut down for several minutes due to over-exhaustion. His AC plummeted towards the Martian surface and Ryan knew that his generator would not restart in time before he reached the ground. Margo noticed a fast falling object on her radar and discovered that it was Ryan's AC; she asked Klein if he would be safe taking on the machines by himself for a bit. Klein muttered that he had been in worse situations, and Margo tossed the KARASAWA back into Klein's hand. She activated her boosters and adjusted her course to match the pathway of Ryan's falling AC.  
She got closer and closer to Ryan's AC until their ACs finally collided. Sparks and bits of metal flew everywhere as Margo's AC began falling with Ryan's. She redirected all her AC's power to compensate for the inertia of the collision, and she effectively slowed their rate of descent. Klein's chain gun was spraying bullets across the entire vicinity of the encroaching machines until he had finally exhausted the ammo. He had used up every missile in his back launcher, and the energy matter in the KARASAWA had dwindled considerably. Margo finally reached Klein's vicinity where she was merely hovering with Ryan's AC in her grasp. Her boosters had just run out of energy and she landed with her AC's titanium clawed feet planted firmly into the ground. The machines kept pouring in like an infestation; Klein had to fight twice as hard to protect the welfare of his unit until the pick up would arrive.  
Klein knew that the time had come to unleash his laser blade upon the machines; the same one that had cut down countless Ravens during his reign as Nine breaker. The blade extended from an external gauntlet latched upon the AC's left wrist. The violet colored blade was several shades brighter than the paint on his AC revealed by the luminosity of the blade. His AC's body was a deep blood red, the color of vermilion; it was as though his AC had been washed with the blood of those pilots who were cut down by his wrath over the years. Margo and Ryan witnessed the look in his AC's eye, which was a pulsating neon blue visor that cut through the shade of the protruding metal brow. Klein boosted between the teaming numbers of the arachnid-like machines, which were slow to turn and face him. His blade ripped through the husk of their metallic shells before they knew what hit them. Margo and Ryan had jury rigged the energy shield on Ryan's AC by tapping power directly from Margo's generator; the shield's projection and integrity had been enhanced due to the direct tapping, and they hid themselves behind a translucent green wall of energy. While Klein continued to dance around the machines and cut them down, Margo and Ryan noticed the arrowhead shaped pick up vessel approaching their location. The vessel finally descended to their location and the machines retreated; Klein retracted his laser blade and the unit boarded the ship. When Margo tried to thank Klein for protecting her and Ryan, Klein merely said that they would have reduced his pay if their ACs did not make it. When the Zio Matrix drop ship was about to leave orbit, Klein had turned his eyes towards Mars as Murakumo had once turned their eyes towards Isaac City. The Zio Matrix drops ships returned to Earth several months later and they paid Klein his fee, as was Margo Jameson for her role in the mission. Zio Matrix discharged Ryan Templeton for acts of cowardice and threatening the welfare of his unit and they kept him under close observation so that he would not leak any information to the Corporation's rivals. Ryan had rejoined Earth Government after begging them to reinstate him to his former title of Peacekeeper, which was a type of Government police of sorts. Zio Matrix research scientists could still not account for the evolution of the machines on Mars and since they did not understand their nature, they had superfluously dubbed them Disorder Units. When Klein had returned to Earth, his worst fears had been fulfilled; he had discovered that the Earth Government forces had hunted down key members of the Raven's Nest bringing the mercenary faction to a collapse. Over the next year, Zio Matrix hired Ravens that were now scattered throughout Earth, hoping to wipeout or at least subdue the Disorder Units on Mars. Zio Matrix had immediately begun plans of colonization with the hopes of establishing and dominating the Corporate environment on Mars. By 222 A.G.D., Zio Matrix's movements could no longer be kept a secret and the Earth Government and Emeraude were hot on the trail of the one Zio Matrix was blazing. In 223 A.G.D. the first colonies sprung up on Mars where a great majority of them were owned and controlled by Zio Matrix. Whenever an Emeraude colony had undergone construction, Zio Matrix would dispatch a personal squad of ACs to destroy their installation. The race for the red planet had only just begun.  
With the Raven's Nest disembodied and Klein searching for a new means of procuring jobs for the acquisitions of credits, the Earth Government thought it an appropriate time to approach Klein with an offer. The Earth Government kept a careful eye out for Klein; they knew of his abilities and put great confidence in them. They had waited for the right moment to make their move, and when Klein had taken up the contract with Zio Matrix the Earth Government sought to poison the well from which Klein's prosperity flowed. It was then that they hunted down and murdered key members of the Raven's Nest to force it into a collapse. The Earth Government, like the Corporations themselves, turned its eyes to Mars with the hopes of furthering its own agenda. They knew that the only way they could keep Earth Government running was to win the mutual support of the Corporations on Mars, while coming up with new ways of maintaining that precious balance of power.  
The Earth Government had gathered up whatever remnants of Ravens they could scavenge in order to create some kind of security force to maintain the peace on Mars. Earth Government knew, however, that although many of the Ravens were renegades in their own respect, many had looked up to Leos Klein as their surrogate leader. A Raven's skill, whether in the Arena or on Corporation sorties, was like a scepter that he or she held up for everyone to see. It was an unwritten code amongst the Ravens to honor that skill, and he or she who was the most skilled won the most respect and thus most followers. Earth Government knew that it was difficult to coerce the Ravens into such a new faction, especially since they had been responsible for the destruction of the Raven's Nest. They were certain that if they were able to convince Klein into joining their proposed security force, other Ravens would jump at the opportunity to work alongside him.  
The Earth Government approached Klein with the proposal, and Klein was merely waiting to dispatch those who had brought down the Raven's Nest. The Earth Government managed to convince Klein, however, by offering him a paid salary that exceeded what he made on a mission-to-mission basis as a Raven. Other Ravens soon joined Klein; even Margo Jameson had resigned from Zio Matrix to pursue a career alongside him. Earth Government dubbed the newly formed security force as the Frighteners, named in the spirit of maintaining control on Mars by dispatching those rogue elements who would upset that balance. The Earth Government sent the Frighteners to Mars in order to give Emeraude a fighting chance to establish a foothold in the new Corporate environment. More competition between the Corporations meant better business for the Earth Government.  
The Earth Government realized, however that strong-arm tactics alone would not be substantial enough to maintain some kind of order. What they needed was a mirage, a company that posed as the regulator and mediator of business dealings on Mars but with the power of the Frighteners backing it. In 225 A.G.D., the Earth Government had established the LCC (Large-scale enterprises of Central Committee). Even with the appearance of the LCC on Mars, however, the Earth Government had learned what all governments of the past had learned, that the Corporations were the ones who still wielded all the power. The Frighteners, under the leadership of Leos Klein struck down the rouge elements, namely other Ravens and Corporate owned AC pilots, in order to prevent monopolistic reign by one Corporation over the other. The Earth Government knew that if one of the Corporations should rise up, then the only other competition left would be the Government itself, which could not stand a chance because of its infancy. As long as the Corporations faced each other off trying to grab the top spot of the market, the Earth Government would be safe amidst the chaos. For a while, the Corporations did not mind Earth Government's intervention, especially Emeraude, since the Earth Government gave it a fighting chance.  
As more and more citizens of Earth migrated towards Mars over the next few years, there was a growing feeling that something was missing on the new planet. It was then that Earth Government, Emeraude, and Zio Matrix established NERVES Concord, which essentially became the successor to the Raven's Nest. The Government and the Corporations responded to the people's desire to establish a Martian Arena, where Ravens from Earth and Ravens from Mars could come to compete for supremacy. Much like the Raven's Nest, NERVES Concord operated as a dispatcher for Ravens in order to procure work carried out for the interests of the Corporations.  
Klein, however, knew that Concord was a mockery of the Raven's Nest as the original Masters established the Raven's Nest for the Ravens themselves, maintained by Ravens, not the Corporations. The formation of Concord finally convinced Klein of the hypocrisy that he himself openly endorsed. He had cut down Ravens that were once like him, mercenaries; AC pilots who were free from the likes of the Government and the Corporations. He had finally realized that not even the citizens who lived under the Earth Government and the Corporations were free, that the only ones who ever had a choice who to fight for and for what were the Ravens. Perhaps he had hid within the shell of his AC for far too long, it was time to strive for an ideal; something that was true to him and something that the Corporations and the Earth Government could never control. Klein knew what he had to do and that he only had to wait for the right moment; time seemed to be on his side, after all.  
Twenty years had passed, and Klein was still as patient as ever; he had lived for ninety Earth years but in appearance, he had only aged forty. His lank hair, which stretched to his shoulders used to be as black as the tar they laid on roads; it now contained streaks of iron gray in the hair hanging just above his ears. Above his chiseled jaw and Roman nose were set his azure eyes, which seemed to radiate from under the shadow of his brow. Despite his good looks and graceful aging, he remained hidden behind a machine that seemed to drive him more then he did it; being a Raven was the only thing he knew. Many years ago, Margo Jameson had grown affectionate of Klein's almost anti-hero nobility as she fought alongside with him on the Frighteners. He had protected her on countless occasions throughout their missions together, and she had watched his back just the same. Still, Margo could never reach Klein as he hid himself behind the visage of his cold titanium AC. Margo could no longer wait around for Klein to return his sentiment, so years later she had married Ryan Templeton who eventually became Chief Trade Commissioner in the Earth Government, and was responsible for the regulation of trade between Earth and Mars. Margo retired from the Frighteners after that and settled down to a comfortable position in Earth Government alongside her husband.  
For a while, the Disorder Units that initially attacked the ACUs and the first colonists were considered exterminated by the LCC and Corporations during the Purge. The Purge, as the Corporations called it, was a global mission to eliminate the Disorder Unit infestation on Mars between the years of 225-236 A.G.D. However, as the human population began to sprawl its way across the face of Mars the Disorder Units began teaming in numbers once more, nobody knew why or how. They seemed to focus their attacks on Corporation property, mostly food and resource depots that were heavily guarded by Corporation AC Units. Although the ACUs were heavily armed, the endless swarms of Disorder Units simply outnumbered them and they always seemed to attack with a singular consciousness.  
It was now 245 A.G.D., and the situation on Mars had not changed, the number of Disorder Units on Mars had doubled to what they had been before the Purge. As food and resource depots on Mars continued to be destroyed, the Corporate Satellite Cities on Mars began to depend upon the importation of goods from Earth. Earth Government knew that this was the opportunity it had been waiting for to secure its position; it began to levy heavy trade taxation upon the Martian Corporations and their Satellite Cities. In turn, Klein knew that this act was the opportunity he had awaited for the last twenty years.  
After the Martian Corporations grew sick of Earth Government's taxes and Klein's Frighteners became disillusioned with the same institution, the two parties met in secret. They had come to the conclusion that they must do away with two enemies that had been at their throats for far too long. First, they would have to eliminate the threat of the Disorder Units on Mars so that they could regain control of their own planet. Finally, and most importantly, the Martian Corporations made the assertion that the Earth Government had become tyrannical, threatening the spirit of their "free enterprise," and that they had to wipe this institution from the face of Mars for all their sakes.  
The plan had gone into effect and both the Martian Zio Matrix and Emeraude Corporations agreed to put their petty feud aside; they funded Klein and his Frighteners with the proper AC equipment and back up support to eliminate the Disorders. More and more Ravens from both Earth and Mars were keeping up with Klein's movements, so the roster of Ravens under the Frighteners had grown. Within a year, the Disorders had all but been destroyed; whatever remained of the Disorders, Zio Matrix had studied in secret with the hopes of adapting their technology to incorporate it into their AC design. Zio Matrix had conducted these analyses in secret, without Emeraude ever catching them in the act; Zio Matrix felt that it was their right since they had been the first Corporation to emigrate to Mars. Since Klein had been part of the original recon team, he was allowed as much security access to the data as the scientists. Klein had finally learned the secret as to why the Disorders had transformed so from their original programming, and why they had been hostile to the Martian settlers. The secret would remain with Klein for sometime, for even he could not bear to admit the truth and relevance of it to himself, let alone others. It came to pass that Klein and his team had hunted down the rest of the Disorder menace, while Earth Government had all the while believed they were paying Klein to merely protect the Corporations. Earth Government became furious with Klein's action, as they now had lost their grip on the Corporation's actions and economic viability. But by that time it had made no difference; the Frighteners and the Corporations had officially declared their independence from Earth. The Frighteners and successive waves of new Ravens joining the roster, listened to Klein's call for arms; they listened to an old man's dream of a state on Mars dedicated to the freedom of Ravens. This was the moment Klein had been patiently waiting for: the liberation of the Ravens from NERVES Concord and the Earth Government. The Corporations knew that the absolution of NERVES Concord meant that they too would lose control over the mercenaries. The Corporations had no choice but to give Klein leadership since the Ravens followed him and were their only protection from Earth Gov. Forces; this unique scenario had made them "partners."  
The battle line between the Earth Forces and the Frighteners of Free Mars had been drawn; the Ravens of Mars had to contend with those AC pilots who were property of Earth Gov, much as Klein had been. The Earth Government took the battle to Mars, as some twenty monolithic Earth Gov. and LCC drop ships entered Mars orbit. The battle ensued as hundreds of shining Armored Cores fell one another by the setting of the deep blue Martian twilight. Klein's forces were skilled pilots and had earned their rightful titles of Ravens, but it was not enough to stop the sheer number of the Earth Forces. The Earth Forces consisted of a vast number of fighter plane, tank, and robotic MT (Mobile Trooper) units. It was clear now, more than ever, that it took the likes of an artisan to make a Raven, but all the skill involved in that process was irrelevant when it came to the mass-produced toys of the Earth Gov. Forces.  
Klein wasn't finished just yet, however. Klein's greatest stratagem lied in his ability to convince his enemies that he was like a wounded animal, lame, no longer able to defend itself. The Earth Gov. Forces kept pushing the Frighteners towards the Northern and Southern hemispheres of Mars, away from heavily populated areas. The Earth Gov. Forces essentially split Klein's forces, thus, wearing the concentration of the Frighteners' attacks thin. Klein was merely counting on this sort of strategy; it gave him the needed distraction to carry out his true plans.  
With a small handful of a personally selected security force, Klein fled from the fighting to a desert that lay in the midwestern region on Mars. Several months earlier, Klein's forces had intercepted data regarding Balena Corporation's construction of some kind of secret instillation. Balena was a fledgling Corporation that was actually born on Mars; rival Corporations revered them for their ability to incorporate all the practical firepower that Emeraude had, with the unconventional and streamlined designs of Zio Matrix. Balena had secured its reputation when the Frighteners had witnessed the engineering plans of the STAI battleship (Superior Tactical Assault Instillation). The STAI was a modified space platform that stretched out for about seven miles from its center, with three conjoined platforms at the ends of the connecting struts. Underneath each of the circular platforms, there were prongs that hung three miles long and jaggedly curved inwards to some kind of focal point. The Frighteners and Klein learned that this focal point between the prongs was the STAI's main energy weapon capable of atmospheric bombardment, much like those weapons used during the Great Destruction.  
Balena had chosen the perfect hiding spot for the STAI in the middle of the Martian desert, hidden miles below the surface, away from all the other Corporations and their Satellite Cities. It had remained there sleeping and secure for the seven years it took to build from the other Corporations, but not safe enough from Klein's ambition. Because the majority of Balena's forces were out supporting the Martian coup d'état, there was only a small handful of ACs patrolling the area. Klein wanted minimal casualties...on his side, so he ordered his ACs equipped with sniper rifles to take out the security detail. The ACs spread themselves out before a rocky barrack that lied about 800 yards from the STAI's bunker. Klein issued orders to aim for the head units of the security detail to take them out faster. Some of his ACs had been equipped with pulse sniper rifles, which utilized shell rounds, while other were equipped with laser rifles.  
The security detail paced back and forth, with their own short-range rifles dropped to their sides, never expecting any action. Suddenly, a beam of light cut through one of the patrolling AC's head, and the body of it crashed to the red dust below. The other ACs quickly looked into the direction the fire had come from, only to meet bullets and beams that crashed and sliced through their head units. In the distance, Klein's force witnessed the ACs successively drop to the ground issuing small clouds of red dust in the air. Klein ordered his AC Unit to move in and the ACs streaked across the Martian dust leaving a trail of red smoke in their wake. They arrived at an obelisk shaped structure that stood alone in the vast ocean of sand. Klein ordered one of his ACs who was an intelligence and technical expert to investigate the structure.  
The AC informed Klein that he had found some control device that required some time to hack before he could activate. Klein ordered the AC to activate the control device as soon as he had finished decrypting it. Within minutes the ground beneath Klein's AC began to shake, and he and his AC Unit boosted off the surface. They retreated to their original location in the shallow rocked barracks and witnessed the ground recede backwards from the center of the obelisk structure. There was a growing orifice around the obelisk and the sands of the desert poured over the edges in a hazy cascade. The bay doors had fully retracted and the obelisk turned out to be a part of the STAI itself, which was mounted on top of a large scarlet cylinder that stretched for two miles deep, and was a mile in diameter. Underneath the shell of Klein's AC, a wicked smile streaked across the former Nine breaker's visage.  
The Earth Gov. drop ships were in deep orbit around Mars, monitoring the escalating battles in the Northern and Southern regions. The captain aboard the bridge of one of the drop ships looked over a holographic strategic map and remarked what a splendid little war this was turning out. In the next instant, a dynamic white light surged from the upper Martian atmosphere splitting one of the drop ships just starboard to the captain's own in half. The captain cursed an ancient god he had never known from the annals of Old Earth myth. The captain ordered his crew to bring the source of the attack up on the holographic viewer. The captain's eyes gaped open as he witnessed a colossal scarlet claw that hung in the dawning sky of the Martian atmosphere.  
Within the next several minutes, someone on the STAI sent a general communicate to all the drop ships warning them to gather up their forces and leave Mars. One of the captains from another drop ship opened up a channel and insisted that the sender must be joking. In that instant, another beam struck the base of that same drop ship and tore a gaping hole through the center of the vessel. The sky marshal of the remaining eighteen ships issued a general retreat, and they activated their sub-light engines leaving their remaining AC Units below to whatever fate would deal them. Once the drop ships had left orbit, Klein ordered the AC piloting the STAI to pickup the remaining Frighteners from the Northern and Southern hemispheres. After Klein issued his order, he left the bridge of the STAI and went AWOL. Although the STAI was cumbersome in design, in performance it had exceeded most space platform functions. It managed to traverse the Martian continents within mere hours; afterwards, the STAI attacked the Earth Gov. ground units with its auxiliary weapons consisting of ballistic missiles and pulse cannons. The STAI wiped the Earth Gov. Forces from the face of Mars, and the remaining Frighteners found refuge aboard the STAI. Klein returned days later, but nobody dared question his whereabouts; besides, they trusted their leader. Earth Government was not about to let Mars get out of their hands so easily, however. They learned that taking a drop ship into Mars orbit was impossible now with the STAI's main weapon pointed up at the stars. Earth Gov. learned that Balena constructed the STAI so they contacted them. Balena was reluctant to admit that they constructed the battle ship and even more so, when Earth Gov. asked them for detailed schematics of it. Earth Government promised Balena that they would overlook this little infraction of constructing a space platform carrying atmospheric weapons banned by the Isaac Treaty. Balena was more than happy to comply, and Earth Government soon understood the course of action they must take to stop Klein. Earth Gov. learned that although the main weapon could take out large vessels like capital cruisers and drop ships, it was too great an effort for it to target and destroy smaller and more versatile crafts. A single Earth Gov. battle cruiser entered the dark side region of Mars, opposite of the STAI's position; they used the planet itself as a natural barrier to the STAI's sensors. The battle cruiser entered a low orbit around Mars, and at the belly side of its hull two gigantic bay doors slid open. Some fifteen smaller ships flew out of the hangar bay and descended towards the lower Martian atmosphere. These ships were actually rescue ships, with a forty-yard wingspan and an eagle head shaped cockpit in the front. These ships contained large hangar bays, which gave these eagle- like planes an overweight look to them and made one wonder how they could actually fly. Within the cargo bays, however, there were scores of Earth Gov. ACs and hired Ravens who chose not to follow Klein's wild ambition.  
Within a few hours, the planes had reached the dayside of Mars and approached the STAI's vicinity. The transports met with a volley of ballistic missiles and artillery launched from the pulse cannons. The transports carried laser-based countermeasures to intercept the missiles, but they could not defend themselves against the pulse cannons. One of the cannons hit the transports hard in the cockpit and the transport went down in flames, while the ACs onboard tried escaping through a half-open hanger bay door. Those ACs, numbering somewhere between twenty and thirty fired their boosters for as long as they could to reach the platform. Some activated their Limit Release and made it to the platform; when they finally made it, the STAI's pulse cannons tore through their titanium shells. The seven ACs from that transport who made it, managed to take down two out of eight of the pulse cannons mounted all along the platform.  
By the time the transport planes made across the STAI's perimeter, only three of the ships had survived with their AC Units intact. Some sixty ACs were scattered along the seven mile perimeter of the space platform trying to find a way inside the complex. The Frighteners were worried that the ACs would soon penetrate their outer defenses; Klein told them not to worry, that he had everything taken care of. On the space platform, the pilots of the ACs began to lose control over the stability of their ACs; they could no longer maintain their balance. The bodies of the ACs flew backwards and they landed on their backs, trapped against the hull of the STAI while they struggled in vain to move. The hull of the STAI was polarized; the titanium bodies of the ACs were stuck to it like refrigerator magnets.  
The remaining turrets of the STAI turned their barrels towards these ACs and they began to fire their incendiary rounds into them. The pilots within the Cores (torso) of the ACs burned alive; some of their bodies had even fused to the hulls of their own ACs creating a sarcophagus of flesh and metal. They died by fives and tens; soon their dead numbered into the forties and then finally the fifties. There was one pilot among them, however, who said to that he was not going to go out like that. Gabriel Reeves recently became a Raven in the Arena as all Ravens like Klein before them. He was a regarded by some of his cohorts as one-half brains and the other pure testosterone; the time had finally come to see which half was going to get him out of this.  
Gabriel only had minutes to come up with something before the barrels would finally turn towards him. Every AC's generator had operated on isolinear confinement beams that harnessed the power of hydrogen in water. Gabriel knew this and remembered that there was some electro magnetism involved with the mechanizations of the generator itself. Within the cockpit of his AC he ripped off a control panel to his right, and began reconnecting some circuits. When the barrel was just about to pivot its head towards Gabriel's AC, his Armored Core boosted off the hull of the STAI and onto a girder attached to some communications array on top of the space platform. The mistake he had made years ago when installing his new generator had saved his life; he had accidentally reversed the polarity of the generator and it polarized the hull of his AC, making it a magnet to all the parts in the body shop. He recalled how pissed-off the owner was and how long it took to depolarize all the parts.  
The STAI's security stations counted nearly sixty incapacitated ACs. They could not locate Gabriel's AC since he hid himself right on top of the communications tower; the transmissions from the tower were able to scramble his own signal, thus protecting his location. Gabriel crouched down in his telemetry suit and his AC mimicked his posture. Gabriel was only twenty-two years old when the Masters of the Arena initiated him as a Raven; other mercenaries who knew him heard stories about his cunning in the Arena, and avoided him as much as possible. His reputation had risen in the Arena so quickly, that other Ravens forfeited their matches; they feared that their credit earnings would not be enough to cover the damage done to their ACs. The older and more experienced pilots who actually faced him could not repair the damage done to their egos, toppled by somebody so young.  
Four years later, Gabriel never imagined himself stranded on some communications tower on some stupid battleship floating above some god- awful rock he has never even visited. Gabriel did not care about Klein's revolution; he decided to be a gun for hire wherever the money and fringe benefits were, namely with Earth Government. He had decided to sign up for the suppression of the Martian rebels mostly because Earth Gov. promised to update Gabriel's AC with the latest technology directly from Zio Matrix Earth HQ.  
Gabriel's AC was of the Humanoid Stature Type because he thought that all other types would interfere with his performance due to interface lag times in his telemetry suit. Thus, he avoided Tread Legs, Quadrupedal Legs, and Hover Legs altogether. He simply felt more natural in an AC that was a literal extension of himself; that whatever movement he made his AC counterpart would reproduce to the twitch of a finger. This Humanoid AC had aided him on countless occasions in the Arena. When he had run out of ammo on several occasions he would grind his opponent into the dust by going at the other Raven with haymakers and roundhouses. The spectators regarded Gabriel as one of the most unorthodox fighters in the Arena they had ever seen; he brought the fans in just as Klein had many years ago.  
Gabriel's jet black AC crouched on top of the communications tower like a gargoyle waiting for eternity. The visage of the head unit was bird like, with an elongated spike of sorts that extended backwards from the brow at an angle. The Core of the AC was a new design; it had a finely shaped triangular form that protruded outwards from the rest of the body. The cockpit was contained therein, at the front of the tip in an oval shaped window. The arms were slender, but adequately armored as blast shields extended in a pointed shape just past the elbow joints. The lower torso and hip were much more narrow in width compared to the shoulders, giving the AC an almost masculine quality. The AC's legs were long and elegant above the knee joint; past the knee joint the calves and shins seemed to be outfitted with a titanium exoskeleton for added resistance to enemy fire. The AC had cloven feet with two claw-like toes that protruded outwards and a single larger claws that extended from the ankles. These talons that dug into the communications girder kept Gabriel safely tethered as the wind sheer of the upper atmosphere picked up.  
Gabriel tried locating any other surviving ACs on his RADAR, but he gave up after a while. Next, he tried to open up a communications channel using the secure Earth Gov. COM frequency, but had no success in reaching anyone. Through the atmospheric distortion and incessant hissing that was coming through his COM station, Gabriel could barely make out what almost sounded like a voice in the wind. It appeared that the voice had a name, as it identified itself as Nell Aulter. Gabriel expressed that he was relieved to finally hear somebody's voice after having been stuck at the top of the tower for some time. Nell ordered him to get a grip and avoid the small talk; that there was a lot more at stake than the Raven realized. Gabriel asked Nell what the mission was now and when the back-up would arrive to commence it. Nell could only apologize and tell him that it was impossible to send any back up now, after the security breach and there was no other way to reach him, not until he neutralized the STAI.  
Gabriel nearly jumped out of his telemetry suit on that remark; he repeated Nell's last order back to her and demanded what he would get in return if he did it. Nell told him that Earth Government would be more than willing to offer him a permanent position as one of their AC Units and a handsome salary. Gabriel than retorted about what would he get out of the money if he was Earth Gov.'s slave. Gabriel offered his bidding of doing it for a lump-sum payment of eight million credits. Nell jumped from her seat at NERVES Concord and said that there was no way Earth Government would be willing to pay that. Gabriel than offered his second bid of sixteen million credits and Nell said that this was a dangerous game he was playing with Earth Government. Gabriel finally gave his final bid of sixty- four million credits and if Earth Gov. did not like it they could find somebody else.  
An Earth Government official had stood over Nell's shoulder, gave a long sigh, and told Nell that the Raven could have what he wants. Nell gave Gabriel the okay and Nell had asked for the Raven's name, but Gabriel only gave Nell his AC's name which he called "Dark Star." Nell thought it a strange name but understood his need for anonymity; all Ravens needed protection from their enemies when they were not inside the titanium hull of an AC. Gabriel brought up a schematic of the STAI's superstructure looking for an alternate entrance other than the heavily armored and defended main one. Nell monitored his dilemma and sent him a recently acquired blue print from Balena via e-mail. The new blue print contained a highlighted portion that seemed to be the garbage disposal section of the STAI. It was almost at the other side of the platform from where he was; he knew it would be risky.  
Gabriel saw within the schematics of the STAI that Balena had constructed sensors that were able to pick up energy traces from propulsion devices. He knew that there was no way that he was going to make it to the lower part of STAI using his boosters, so he had to devise of some other way. The propulsion sensors seemed to only cover the very exterior sections of the station, while the lower section of where he was heading contained no such sensors. He knew now that he had to use the other half of himself that he was famous for, the one that was all balls. He balanced himself on top of the girder and lifted his arms up in parallel. He took a deep breath and then his AC swan dived off the girder plunging itself down the two mile long stretch of the STAI's side. He fell from the Martian sunset like black shard cutting through the sky.  
Gabriel's computer was telling him that he was approaching his set destination, and when he finally reached it, his AC maneuvered itself upright and fired its boosters. The AC accelerated up a vast tunnel when a tumbling steel block nearly lobbed off its head unit. Gabriel had almost spent his booster power when he made it half way up the mile long structure. His AC grabbed on to a jutting service handle until its generator was able to capacitate before going further. Gabriel only took less than a minute to stop there and cling to the handle, but it only took less than that when a security camera spotted him. Gabriel was unaware; he had behaved like an amateur back during his mission training days. Balena, like any shrewd magician, did not give all of their secrets away regarding their creation; they gave just enough to get Earth Government off their backs.  
One of Klein's security team ACs spotted Gabriel's Dark Star and alerted his captain of the situation. The blood-like shadow of Klein's AC crept over the security AC's back, while its incandescent blue eye sized up Dark Star. Klein told the guard not to worry, that he would take care of the AC personally and that he needed to get some practice anyway. Dark Star's generator reached full energy capacity and Gabriel resumed his course towards the top of the chasm. When he reached the top, he stepped onto a grid-like platform with a massive door in front of it. Gabriel checked the schematics on his computer screen but this door did not appear as part of the original plans. He contacted Nell to ask her about the nature of the door and she could not account for its purpose either. Nell only postulated that perhaps Balena kept the command center layout of the STAI off the blueprints incase the designs should fall into the wrong hands. Nell warned the Raven to proceed with caution.  
The door seemed to be locked, with access only allowed to those with high security level clearance. Gabriel knew he did not have time to go around looking for an AC with the clearance code, so he decided to hack the code with his head unit's computer. Luckily, Gabriel had bought one of the most expensive head units from the Garage a few years earlier, with one of the highest rated hacking functions available. He remembered almost not buying that head unit, telling the owner that there wasn't a door in both worlds he couldn't break down with his AC. Even though he resented the fact that the Garage owner swindled him, Gabriel didn't mind paying the owner's outstanding price of one hundred and ninety thousand credits.  
Dark Star's eye was an upside down triangle that seemed to have a ruby colored lens. From the AC's eye, a red beam swept over a computer interface that was just to the right of the massive entrance. Within several minutes, the massive doors slowly opened up and Gabriel proceeded inside with his favorite weapon raised. He had brought along the KARASAWA- MKII, which was the veritable grandson of Klein's antiquated MKA model. It was a Zio Matrix design and as such, it seemed that they constructed it to look more flashy than practical. The top of the weapon, the targeting sensor, ran into a sleek forty-degree slope downwards towards the tip of the barrel. It was as sleek and shiny as a shark's fin and carried within its intricate design all the shear power of the same beast that ruled the Oceans of Old Earth.  
Dark Star waved the glowing green eye of the KARASAWA's targeting sensor against the tapestry of shadows that wove through the long tunnel past the opened security door. Within Dark Star, Gabriel couldn't pick up any energy signals whatsoever, it seemed strange to him that this tunnel in any way could lead him to the command center. Gabriel threw caution into the wind and activated his Over-Boost system. Two hatches at the top of Dark Star's shoulders opened up, and two internalized thrusters revealed themselves. There was a deep lavender cloud that erupted into a purple haze of fire that screamed out of the OB thrusters, which hurled Dark Star at speeds exceeding nine hundred k/ph. The tunnel seemed to be over two miles long as Gabriel's AC notified him of the traversed distance to an unforeseen target point. A few minutes later the OB system gave out and Dark Star reached yet another door.  
This circular door was different from the one he had entered previously; it was much larger, over a hundred feet in diameter. There was no security interface whatsoever, so Gabriel decided to waltz up to the door and see what would happen. The door slowly opened up like a metallic iris, after which Gabriel stepped beyond its threshold into the adjoining room. Within the room, a monolithic crystal dome protruded outwards towards the Martian dusk. Gabriel found the room dimly lit, however, with abandoned posts that flickered incessantly with a barrage of ember-like colors. There was one color, however, that particularly struck Gabriel in such a way as to arouse his curiosity. The color was an incandescent blue light that radiated from the shadows of the room several feet in front of him.  
Dark Star took the KARASAWA up into arms pointing towards the blue light with the weapon's own green targeting light. Gabriel picked up a tremendous energy source, which confirmed that the light was emanating from another AC. The unidentified AC took one step towards Dark Star and Gabriel within, just enough for the sunset peering through the crystal dome to cast a vermilion silhouette. Gabriel almost instantly recognized this familiar figure, he had watched this shadow swallow up the lives of countless Ravens in the Arena archives. He had studied Leos Klein's moves ever since he was a child, dreaming everyday that he would get a chance to become as great of a Raven. In truth, Klein was the closest thing to a real hero in Gabriel's life, yet here he was standing against him.  
The red shadow seemed to just stare at Gabriel, probing deep within his young heart, as if it were seeking to find some kind of a truth...or Gabriel's weakness. For a moment, Gabriel forgot about the millions of credits he would earn for this mission, he knew that the only way he would ever truly be Master of the Arena was to surpass another Master. The other AC turned its blue gaze towards the KARASAWA-MKII in Dark Star's grasp. Then, the crimson AC took up its own KARASAWA-MKA and glared over its cumbersome and aging exterior.  
Gabriel received an incoming audio transmission from the other AC: "You remind me of a pilot I knew long ago, a rebel. The Corporations, the Government, everybody bought his will for a price and he ceased to be that which was truest of himself. I learned, Raven, that it is never too late to become an idealist; it is never too late to dream. Join me Raven and free Mars, free your brothers and sisters from a Government that would keep them trapped in a cage, only to let them out to fulfill its own selfish whims."  
Gabriel considered the gravity and earnest of Klein's words, but he had already made a contract with Earth Gov. and they promised him his money. Gabriel, and many Ravens like him, had become so brainwashed by the value of money that it never occurred to them just how important Klein's rebellion was. Klein understood that Ravens had existed long before the Earth Government, and before their tyranny, all Ravens were truly mercenaries. In essence, Klein understood that no Government would ever support the freedom of mercenaries and thus one or the other had to go. In his youth, Gabriel could not sympathize with Klein's ambition, he could not see past the riches promised him by the Earth Government. In his idealistic state, Klein could not accept any other answer from Gabriel except that he would be willing to join him. Klein would rather see Gabriel die at his hand than let the Government feast upon him while he lived. This space of thoughts and ideas between them is where they drew the battle line to determine the history of the future.  
"What is your answer Raven? Will you join us?"  
"What about the people Klein? What will happen to them when the Government that now protects them from the Corporations ceases to exist? You must realize that things will be the way they were before, with the Ravens on top of the food chain and the citizens begging for table scraps from the Corporations."  
Something in Gabriel's words struck a chord with Klein; he recalled that a long, long time ago the Corporations took him in after the death of his parents, they gave him a new life. This reasoning now seemed to oscillate up and down on a fulcrum of contradiction. Did the Corporations give Klein a new life, or had they snatched him out of a life that was better than the one he was living? This seesaw of thought bounced up and down in Klein's mind as his AC paced the chamber like a man lost in a dream. Memories poured into Klein's mind, like the ones from the Corporate Reconditioning facilities in which they trained him to fight, or rather, murder as a child. He then remembered the time when he built his infamous laser blade, the one that had sliced through the bodies of Ravens in the Arena for decades. For reasons he could not explain, a picture of Margo Jameson had jumped into his mind.  
He remembered her auburn hair that curled and fell around her shoulders, her sullen smile that disappeared into laughter when Klein could not understand why he had said something funny. Most of all, Klein remembered how her dark eyes stared back at him for the last time at the altar. He remembered how Ryan Templeton asked Margo what was wrong as he gripped her rounded chin with his fingers turning her powdered white face towards his own, away from Klein's blank expression. The sound of her discordant voice when she told Ryan that nothing was wrong still found its place Klein's library of memory anagrams. He knew now what he did not know then, that he had lost someone in his life that could have saved him from himself. The fulcrum upon which Klein's futile reasoning rested was shattered in that instant. Without warning, Klein took up his KARASAWA-MKA and opened fire and Gabriel.  
Gabriel saw the rage building up within Klein, so he was more than prepared when he fired his boosters to dash out of the way of the incoming energy blasts. The seemingly liquid blue fire of the energy beams splashed against the metal hull plating behind Dark Star's former position. As Dark Star slid to a position just to left of Klein's AC, Gabriel lifted up his arm and shaped his hand like a gun and pointed it at Klein's AC. Dark Star mimicked Gabriel's gesture and fired two rounds from the KARASAWA-MKII which struck the hand and wrist of Klein's AC, casting Klein's weapon away from him. Klein's AC looked at its right hand only to find it missing; it only saw wires and circuitry that dangled and sparked around a metal endoskeleton bone that jutted out. The face of Klein's AC seemed changed as the incandescent blue eye ignited into a blaze that engulfed the shadows once crept over it.  
Gabriel stared into the AC's eye as if it had sucked all of his mortal energy into its inferno. Dark Star crept two steps backward as if it had almost responded on its own instinct to protect Gabriel. The male computer voice, which was standard with the head unit Gabriel had acquired, warned him that there was a powerful energy build-up occurring within the enemy AC. In the next instant, a violet-colored shaft of energy extended from the crimson knight's left wrist mount. Gabriel recognized Klein's laser blade from the Arena archives; he never imagined that he would witness it drawn against him. Klein's AC lifted up the blade in a guarded position as if he was preparing for something. Dark Star crouched down slightly as Gabriel instinctively braced himself for anything. Gabriel had also equipped Dark Star with a high-level energy shield incase he would come across a barrage of enemies; but Gabriel only had to face the enemy that was just in front of him now.  
Klein paced the chamber left and right like a predator that was studying its prey, while Dark Star never took his triangular ruby eye off him. It was a showdown; the kind of showdown the ancient people had spoken of in whispers from the recesses of Old Earth. These Armored Cores, these Ravens faced each other now in anticipation to see who would make the first move. Klein's AC bent its boulder-like knees a little and Gabriel responded to this by shouting through his comm.: "Come on Klein! My AC's going to rust before you make your move!"  
In the next instant, the rear bulbous-like back plates of Klein's AC flipped open and blazing golden fire screamed out of the thruster ports. Klein's AC shot towards Dark Star like a blazing arrow of light. Just as Klein reached Dark Star, he swung his laser blade downwards on the crouching Raven. Just when the beam was about to slice him in half, Gabriel threw his left wrist up and Dark Star activated its energy shield. Klein's blade came crashing down on a large emerald dome of energy that rippled like a serene lake when a stone struck against it. Before Gabriel could react, Klein's AC swept its laser blade against Dark Star's cloven feet, flipping the AC onto its back. Dark Star's left arm crashed against the ground and before Gabriel could lift up the shielded arm to protect himself, the titanium foot of Klein's AC came crashing down on it. Dark Star then drew up the KARASAWA-MKII against Klein but Klein swept the weapon from its grip with his laser blade, sending the gun crashing to the floor.  
Gabriel was now unarmed and at Klein's mercy, he had to think of something quick. He just remembered something that got him out of situations like this countless times before. Just as Klein was about the swing his blade down upon him, Gabriel kicked Klein's AC right in the robot crotch. There was a loud clang and Klein's AC stumbled backwards. Dark Star grabbed the KARASAWA-MKII and blasted Klein's left wrist, destroying his legendary blade. Before Gabriel could fire another round, Klein's AC grabbed the barrel end of the gun with its left hand and bent it. While Gabriel shortly cast his eyes at his destroyed weapon, Klein's AC kicked Dark Star in the chest, knocking Gabriel's head against a bulk plate. As Gabriel slipped into unconsciousness, he could hear the echo of a comm. transmission resounding in his mind: "Phobos, that is where I shall be reborn."  
When Gabriel opened his eyes, he found himself within a sickbay that had a view of Mars outside its windows. A woman with neck length frizzled blonde hair approached his side and identified herself as Nell Aulter. Her gray eyes stared into Gabriel's azure colored eyes as she explained the circumstances of his arrival aboard the orbiting capital cruiser.  
"You nearly died out there kiddo. The STAI's position was deteriorating at an incredible speed after the Frighteners jumped ship."  
"Hey! I'm not a kid, I'm a grown man, a Raven!"  
"I've heard that one from countless AC pilots, right before they went to their deaths on some damn mission for the Corporations."  
"So you're an AC Operator. Is that right?"  
"Yes, but I was a Raven like you were a while back. You can only see so many of your friends go down before you...before." Nell reasserted herself and said, "Well, anyway, you know how it is. Don't you Raven?" Gabriel did not respond to her question, he only stared outside the window and at the gleaming ozone layer of Mars. He then saw flashes of brilliant light against a large moon that was orbiting Mars. Then Gabriel remembered.  
"Klein...Klein said he was heading for Phobos!"  
"Calm down Raven, we already know. What do you think all those fireworks are? As we speak Earth Gov. is fighting a losing battle against the Frighteners."  
"What do you mean? How long was I out?"  
"Three days. In that period of time Klein already took control of Phobos."  
"Phobos? How could that be, it's only a dead moon. There's nothing on it."  
"It turns out that it's quite alive after all. While you were unconscious, Klein contacted Earth Government warning us to leave Mars. It turns out that the STAI was only a distraction from Klein's ultimate plan, which we cannot totally fathom. It turns out that Phobos is some kind of space instillation that became derelict after Mars' original owners packed up."  
"Are you telling me that there was some kind of ancient civilization on Mars. I thought that it was only some kind of a fairy tale that our ancestors cooked up."  
"Earth Government laughed at the idea just the same, until Phobos' orbit shifted and took up a tactical position over key Earth Government locations on Mars."  
Nell paced towards the sickbay window, looked out at the firefight in the distance and said, "Now Earth Gov. Forces are out there fighting a battle they don't have a hope in hell of winning."  
Gabriel propped himself up and put his feet onto the cold sick bay floor. He yanked off all the electrodes that were stuck to his head and chest and walked towards the window.  
"Hey take it easy! I know you want to go out there, but frankly one more dead Raven is not going to make the difference. You're certainly not going to change anything with your ass hanging out of your dress." She lifted up a corner of his silver hospital gown and snuck a peak as she said this.  
"Hey!"  
"What? It's nothing that I haven't seen before."  
"Where's my AC?"  
"It's undergoing repairs in Hangar 2, but it won't be ready for quite sometime. In the meantime, you should get some rest." Nell stepped out of the sickbay room while two big gorilla-looking staff members stepped inside. One of the gorillas said, "We could do this the hard way or the easy way," while the other one prepared some kind of high tech syringe. Gabriel threw his hands up in submissiveness and crept back to his bed. When he laid down one of the orderlies held his wrist while the other was closing in with the syringe. With his free arm, Gabriel grabbed the orderly with the syringe by his collar and thrust his head against his companion's jaw. The orderly holding him down stumbled backwards, while Gabriel liberated the syringe from the other one. Gabriel jabbed the syringe into the orderly's behind and he pressed the button. The orderly dropped onto his face, with the syringe sticking out of his mountainous butt like a flag. When the other orderly regained his bearings, he lunged at Gabriel only meet a roundhouse that laid him out.  
Gabriel stripped down one of the orderlies and stuck both of them in the closet. The gorilla's clothes were a little loose on him, but it would have to be enough until he got to his telemetry suit. He peaked his head out of the sickbay door as it automatically slid open; he saw a bunch of armed soldiers storm through the corridors so he edged back into the shadows. When they were gone, he dashed across the hallway to an elevator at the end of the corridor. He told the elevator computer to take him to Hangar 2. The computer informed him that Hangar 2 was a restricted area available only to Earth Gov. personnel. He then ordered the computer to show him where he was on the ship. The computer did that much, and a holographic layout of the cruiser popped out of the terminal. There was a glowing red sphere, which marked his location, but Gabriel was more interested in the area marked HB2. Gabriel noticed a service panel at the top of the elevator. He managed to dislodge the panel and crawl through it. He was on top of the elevator when he spotted a service ladder that was leading to where he wanted to go.  
After an hour or two of crawling around the ship, he finally reached Hangar 2. There were service workers running back and forth, helping the pilots load up their ACs with different kinds of weapons for the battle ahead. In the confusion, no one noticed that an orderly was far from his designated workspace. He saw Dark Star, it turned out that they managed to repair any damage that Klein caused during their run in. The workers also seemed to have outfitted it with a new kind of KARASAWA; it was probably Zio Matrix's new prototype. It seemed smaller than the other one, but it retained the same profile of its predecessor. There also seemed to be some kind of addition to the body, just below the barrel. This addition looked like a secondary barrel of sorts and the tip of it jutted out a little further than the main one. Gabriel couldn't wait to see what extras Zio Matrix had packed into this new model.  
Gabriel couldn't help but notice that Dark Star had sprouted wings, but he realized that they were not wings at all. He remembered that he had faced an opponent in the arena who had utilized a stealth field to disrupt his radar tracking. These wing-like structures, when activated, produced an energy field that covered the AC's tracks. Gabriel knew that Earth Gov. wanted him to sneak into Phobos' superstructure and take out Klein, but suddenly it became harder for him to do so after their encounter. Gabriel realized that Klein could have killed him back there, but he didn't. Gabriel pondered as to what motive Klein could possibly have in sparing his life after he had cut down so many other Ravens just like him in the past. Maybe Klein had enough honor that he wouldn't kill a Raven who was unconscious, that perhaps there would be no glory in doing so. Then again, perhaps it was something that Gabriel couldn't wholly comprehend, not just yet.  
Whatever reasons Klein had in sparing Gabriel's life obscured into mystery, but Gabriel knew that he had a job to do, nonetheless. He was thankful that Klein spared his life, but he felt driven on by something that was greater than himself, greater than all the credits that Earth Government could ever offer him. For all of his life, Gabriel thought that a man's destiny was in his own hands, that as long as he had a weapon by his side he could change the future. He didn't believe in fate, yet here he was staring at Dark Star and waiting to get a chance to beat Klein. Gabriel waited until the coast was clear, he waited until all the other AC pilots boarded the drop ships and went on their way. Gabriel hated drop missions as one who believed that his life was in his own hands; he did not place faith in the steel coffin called an insertion pod. When an AC entered inside the insertion pod, the pod literally trapped the AC inside until it penetrated the lower atmosphere. Gabriel knew that plenty could happen before a pod made it to its destination, so he had to devise of another way to reach Phobos.  
Once the coast was clear, Gabriel raided one of the storage lockers to find a telemetry suit hidden amongst some spare AC parts. He suited up in the black form-fitting telemetry suit that was a network of luminescent fibers, which ran from the pilot's temples to the very tips of his fingers. Gabriel felt a little uncomfortable with a thin force field being the only thing that separated him from the Hanger and space. He knew that his AC would be capable in Zero-G, but getting to Phobos quickly was what he needed. Gabriel searched all over the Hangar but he couldn't find anything that seemed of use. The only thing remotely usable was a missile that one of the Earth Gov. combat ships left unloaded; he had enough firepower, what he needed was a ride. He glanced in another direction but then he locked his eyes back on the missile. He remembered seeing a movie from the Old Earth archives called Dr. Strangelove and he came up with a brilliant idea.  
Gabriel locked his suit's hip extension ports into the cockpit of Dark Star and activated the start-up sequence. Dark Star's main computer performed a retina scan confirming the identity of Gabriel Reeves. Dark Star's computer said, "Welcome Back Gabriel Reeves."  
"It's good to be back buddy!"  
"What is the mission?"  
"Eliminate Leos Klein."  
"What are the designated coordinates?"  
"Phobos, we're headed for Phobos."  
"The designated coordinates are impossible to reach due to lack of transport."  
"We got a new transport."  
Gabriel's AC marched towards the abandoned missile and bent over a service panel located at the cone end of the missile. Dark Star dug one of its hands into the service panel and ripped it free. There were bundles of circuits and computer chips that surrounded an optical interface. "Dark Star, I need you to hack into the ISBM's main computer and give me control of the missile's guidance system."  
"Understood."  
A red beam of light from Dark Star's eye focused into the optical interface, while information regarding the missile's parameters blazed across Gabriel's computer screen. "Wait a minute! I think that was it, go back a step." Dark Star obeyed and brought up an image of what Gabriel understood as the guidance system program. Within several minutes, Gabriel reconfigured the missile's course heading for the outer perimeter of Phobos; Gabriel knew that if he went in too close with the missile the Frighteners would spot him. Dark Star dug its talons and fingers into the hull of the twenty-four meter long missile, while the force field of the Hangar dropped. The missile tore through the vacuum of space while Gabriel was shook by the fuselage of the missile under his AC's claws.  
The missile sped on its course for about ten minutes before its fuel cells exhausted. The missile took Dark Star and Gabriel far enough as he could see Phobos' monolithic shadow with the familiar yellow star that cast it from behind. At any given moment, Gabriel expected a laser blast, missile, or Raven to whiz by him and snuff him out. His expectations failed him, there was nothing left. The Earth Government drop ships were derelict; they spun about the coldness of space colliding with the corpses of Ravens while some ships rammed each other. Gabriel did not pick up any bio signs from the Earth Forces or the Frighteners for that matter. Gabriel knew that they could not have killed each other off, that even battles in the Arena lasted longer than what he saw before him. There was a tremendous energy signature that Gabriel picked up at the center of Phobos' infrastructure, along with a very faint bio sign. Gabriel knew that the signature belonged to Klein and that he had murdered them all.  
Dark Star boosted closer and closer to Phobos while Gabriel studied a schematic of the moon's superstructure, searching for some kind of a way in. Gabriel finally discovered a bay door, which was located at the southern pole of Phobos. Gabriel set a course for that destination and Dark Star activated its Over Boost thrusters. He reached a crater implanted with a large iris entry port, which stretched about ninety meters in diameter. As Gabriel approached the perimeter of the door, he tried looking for some kind of an interface to open it. As he drew closer, the iris entry port dilated. Gabriel knew that Klein practically rolled out the welcome mat for him, but he could not yet decipher his motive. He stepped onto a large translucent disk that was pulsating out from a center; it was as if he stood on a pool of water. The elevator began to descend and the contracting iris swallowed up the last ray of light from the familiar yellow star.  
The elevator descended at an incredible speed as Gabriel felt that he was hovering, even though he had not activated his boosters. Gabriel's altimeter confirmed that he had descended ten kilometers to the very center of Phobos when the elevator stopped. Another large iris like door dilated before him to reveal an illuminated tunnel that ran for about fifty yards. Everything around Gabriel was glowing white, he thought he had died and gone amongst the honored dead with the other Ravens. Gabriel detected the energy surge just behind the door at the end of the tunnel; he took a deep breath and activated his Over Boost system. Dark Star flew like an arrow down that tunnel, like one that was heading straight for Klein's heart. Dark Star grinded his cloven feet against the ground and the AC came to a complete stop. The ruby eye of Dark Star glazed a crimson glow over the new weapon in its grasp, the newest KARASAWA for an even older and deadlier enemy. Gabriel and Dark Star stepped through the final iris, the one that had separated the very boundaries of life and death.  
Something monolithic stood at the center of an even larger surrounding; this command center looked like a glorified Arena to Gabriel, with an even more powerful looking opponent before him. Three massive mechanical columns stood on either side of his opponent and each one of them oscillated up and down into the structure. The opponent looked like an AC but it was more than twice the size of Dark Star in every comparable dimension. It hovered there at the center, like a creature from another time or another world fixed upon the sky. It looked as if the machine sat within a chariot or a throne that carried it and protected it. The chariot, as much as Gabriel could make of it had wings that flared out to either side and were connected at the top by a bridge of sorts. From the bridge were several cannons that made up a weapon's cluster that hung over the machine's head. At the outermost edges of the wings, two dual cannons seemed to focus on and follow every movement that Dark Star made. The deadliest looking weapons were two immense arms that resembled weapons of themselves, with barrel ends that resembled the tips of guns. The feature that struck Gabriel the most came from the seated machine inside this chariot, from the visage of one that looked older than the face of the Earth itself.  
The head of this machine had six incandescent green eyes, three on each side of its elongated white face that seemed to point at Dark Star. Gabriel's gaze was locked into those eyes and he heard a voice, not one that was coming from without, but one that was coming from within. It was Klein's voice; somehow, Klein was tapping straight into Gabriel's very consciousness: "Raven, I hope you've reconsidered my offer. It's seems that a position has just opened up."  
Gabriel started shouting from his mouth, but then he realized that Klein could not hear him on that level, so Gabriel thought: "Klein, there's no one left, there's no one left to rebel against. The Earth Forces, the Frighteners, the LCC...they're all gone."  
"Mars is free! Now we can restore our kind to their former glory. We can create a new Raven's Nest, free from the Earth Government and the Corporations. Join me Raven, and together we can revive the old ways."  
"Why me Klein? I know it's against my best interest, but why didn't you kill me back on the STAI?"  
"Whether you like or not, you and I are the same, Raven. Oh yes. I was like you once. I couldn't see past the credits, the glory, and the death. Deep inside, somewhere, you will soon find something missing, as I did. Our kind begin as realists, we go against the grain. We do not begin as dreamers and become cynics in our old age the minute we discover life isn't what we expected it to be. No, we discovered the malice of life earlier on, and it is from that malice that we learn change; that we do not have to accept the world the way it is. Instead, it is when we think we can change the world for our benefit that we become idealists."  
"Idealism without Government, without Democracy, Klein? You contradict yourself."  
"Democracy, hah, you've been reading far too much into the archives of Old Earth. If you had lived to see what I have seen, you would know that the people could not govern themselves. What is the Government anyway? It is just another Corporation, which does not even provide a product to the people. The only thing that comes out of it is corrupt Bureaucrats who want to get their hands on Corporate money so they can further their own careers and pretend they care for the welfare of the people. Where was your precious Government after the Great Destruction? Where was it during the Deep Earth War? The Corporations took care of the people when the Nation's fell and the Subterranean Cities overflowed with human life."  
"The Government protects the rights of the people Klein, those rights which the Corporations control even now."  
Klein lifted up one his gun barrel arms and said, "This is what protects the people's rights, their lives, and our own lives. If it was not so, you would not have become a Raven and you know it."  
Gabriel could not think of anything to counter Klein's assertion. If he did manage to think of something to say, he would have betrayed everything he has become. He would have betrayed the very notion of what it means to be a Raven. Then, something struck Gabriel, a little detail he had almost overlooked. The one thing that stuck out in Gabriel's mind like a splinter was when Klein had so righteously defended the Corporations. He remembered in his youth when Klein was still his hero, when he had read about the death of Klein's parents in an AC attack on Isaac City. Gabriel, who was always the skeptic and questioned everything that he had heard, read, or witnessed, put it all together.  
"Everything the Corporations have ever told you was a lie Klein. You probably bought into the Arena so much, that you have actually convinced yourself that your parents died in an AC attack."  
"What of my parents Raven? They were never there for me, but the Corporations were."  
"Yes, they were right there for you. Right after they murdered your parents."  
"You lie! Our very livelihood as Ravens depends on the Corporations, you blasphemous dog."  
"You're a mockery Klein; a mockery of a Raven and a mockery of a human being. Every Raven you murdered, every man and woman you've widowed, and all your shit ideals and your very being are products of the Corporations!"  
"Die rebel!"  
Klein's new body charged up its main guns and launched two violet plumes of energy at Dark Star. Gabriel's AC drew its energy shield in defense while a wall of energy rocked Dark Star to its knees. The shield collapsed after the blast and the damage done to the generator irreparable. Dark Star cast the destroyed shield to the ground, while Klein fired off another volley of energy blasts from his main guns. Gabriel saw the plumes coming and he dash boosted out of the way, drawing up his KARASAWA. Dark Star fired three plasma beams each at key points on Klein's chariot; the main arms and hover legs. The rounds only bounced off a surface that coalesced and vibrated; it was some kind of energy shield that rendered his weapon useless. Gabriel then recalled that this new KARASAWA had a secondary weapon, a prototype of sorts. Whatever the weapon was, it only had five rounds in it.  
Before Gabriel could act, Klein launched a shower of micro missiles from his main weapons cluster overhead. Gabriel had not equipped Dark Star with interceptors, but he did have a stealth unit handy. As the missiles were streaming towards him, Gabriel screamed at Dark Star to activate the stealth. The metallic wings on Dark Star's back flipped open, and the wings secreted a purple haze of particles that danced around Dark Star like fire flies. Just as the missiles were about to converge on their target, their tight formation suddenly split in eight directions around Dark Star. With his dual wing-mounted laser cannons and his heightened concentration within the alien machine, Klein tracked Dark Star's movement. Dark Star strafed to the left and right of Klein's view proving himself an uneasy target. Klein finally had a clear shot, and fired both cannons. Four beams of intense blue light streamed right over Dark Star's head, slicing through the tips of the stealth wings, destroying them.  
The beams continued to trace the path that Dark Star blazed, while Gabriel now only had his gun and wits to rely on. Dark Star took up the prototype KARASAWA in both hands and he cocked the lower barrel mount like a shotgun. While Dark Star strafed to Klein's right, Gabriel took up the weapon and opened fire. An immense sapphire orb of energy cut through the air, illuminating the entire chamber its very color. The orb crashed into the base of Klein's chariot, and the force field shattered into electric- like pieces of glass. The shock of the impact sent Klein's machine reeling back, while Gabriel reloaded the chamber. Before Klein could recover from the impact, Dark Star fired another round and the orb smashed the weapon's cluster above the machine's head, taking part of the right arched wing with it. Before Gabriel could reload the chamber, Klein fired a stream of energy from his remaining dual laser cannon and the beam clipped Dark Star's left elbow joint, severing the forearm. Dark Star's forearm crashed to the ground with wires that sparked and fizzled into lifelessness.  
Before Klein could fire another laser stream, Dark Star dashed out of the way firing the KARASAWA's standard plasma rounds into the dual cannon. Three consecutive blasts managed to destroy the remaining cannon mount. Klein only had his remaining two weapon arms to rely on, while Dark Star became an amputee fighting with one arm. As Klein took up his main weapons and tried to keep track of Dark Star's erratic strafing movements, Gabriel managed to grab the second barrel mount with one hand and cock it. Dark Star screeched to a stop several feet on Klein's left. As Klein managed to get his sights locked on, Dark Star took his weapon up before Klein could and fired. The sapphire energy orb splashed the very base of Klein's chariot, causing the hovering unit to tilt and then crash to the floor. The six eyes of the alien machine's head glared about it as the chariot's remaining systems ignited and exploded.  
Gabriel took in a deep breath within Dark Star as a bead of sweat rolled down his brow and off the tip of his nose. From the smoke and flames that danced around the chariot's casing, a large white silhouette emerged. This creature resembled an AC, but stood one hundred feet tall, which was twice the size of Dark Star. It's delicate limbs looked thin and frail, yet they managed to provide more than enough support for this machine. From the head of the machine, Gabriel now spotted a long metallic mane that stretched down the back like an inverted steel hook. At the very top of the mane, there was a circle of points that jutted towards the head; it looked like a crown that stood on its edge. All six of its eyes seemed focused on Dark Star as they ignited into a green blaze of light, which then cascaded throughout its body. The alien machine stepped out of the chariot's seat and crept closer and closer to Dark Star's proximity.  
Gabriel fired three rounds of his weapon's standard plasma beams and they flew right at the machine's torso. Before the plasmas could reach however, two large indigo energy blades cut through the beams in three quick motions. The laser blades then retracted back into the alien machine's slender wrists. The machine then waved its right arm upon Gabriel's location, and eight miniature spheres flew out of its long mane around Dark Star, surrounding it in a satellite. The spheres began to hail down small energy blasts at an incredible speed. Gabriel had once fought a Raven in the Arena who had used an Orbit Cannon, a similar device. Gabriel fired his Over Boost thrusters and the spheres were too slow to reform around him. Once they dispensed their ammo, the spheres re-interlocked with the steel mane. The alien machine's own back flipped open and sky blue fire erupted out. The machine continued to pursue Dark Star around the chamber until the AC's own OB system shut down.  
Gabriel took aim with his KARASAWA and fired its main plasma rounds once more, only for Klein to cut through them with the dual blades. Gabriel knew that something was wrong; he knew that Klein was good, but not this good. Gabriel ordered Dark Star to scan for any abnormal energy signals. Dark Star informed Gabriel that it did not detect any abnormal energy signals aside from the concentrated energy in Klein's weapons. Gabriel continued to fire into the alien machine in multiple patterns, but Klein continued to dice through the rounds at incredible speeds. The machine took a direct stance right in front of Dark Star and knocked the KARASAWA out of its hands; the weapon flew several feet. The machine grabbed Dark Star by its head unit and picked it up ten feet off the ground; the machine's docility shocked Gabriel, despite its slender frame.  
  
Gabriel tried desperately to kick the machine in its knee joints, but the length of its arm kept his attacks at bay. The machine swiped at Gabriel with the indigo laser blade with its free arm, while Dark Star lunged its legs up and locked them around the machine's arm. Dark Star then turned his back to the machine's eyes as it glared on and Gabriel activated the OB system. Both Dark Star and the machine streaked across the chamber and approached a wall; Klein struggled to free himself from Gabriel's grasp but he locked his legs together. Dark Star slammed the machine's back against the wall, crushing its long mane while knocking the head unit back as well. The machine slid down against the wall and sunk to its knees. Gabriel turned his back on Klein and commenced Dark Star to boost back for the dropped weapon. When Gabriel took the KARASAWA into Dark Star's grasp he turned around to see the alien machine blazing a trail of blue flames towards him.  
Gabriel made a trigger pull gesticulation with his hand but the KARASAWA only made a clicking sound. He glanced at his ammo information and discovered that he exhausted the main ammo; he only had two secondary plasma rounds left, he had to make them count. The first thing Gabriel saw on Klein's machine was the crown of points that jut out at him; something about them drew his attention. Right when Klein was about to reach him, Gabriel cocked the laser rifle with one hand, flipped the gun into his grip, and fired at the crown. The sapphire plasma orb shattered the crown into tiny bits that flew in eight directions while residual sparks danced into darkness. The machine almost tipped forward before putting its other foot out and then it almost fell sideways. Inside the machine, Klein howled as if somebody had stabbed him in the heart; Gabriel heard the wail as it reverberated through his comm. station.  
Klein regained his senses and dashed towards Gabriel with both his laser blades drawn, while Gabriel loaded the final plasma round into the chamber. As Klein drew both his arms back, Gabriel shut his eyes tight and fired the last round. The final blast from the KARASAWA intercepted the machine's abdomen, which hurled the torso and legs in opposite directions. When Gabriel opened his eyes, he looked into the alien machine's own eyes and witnessed its six luminous green eyes flicker into oblivion. Gabriel heard sharp grinding sounds echo around the chamber and felt the ground beneath him quake. He looked up at the six columns he noticed when he entered and they each seemed to oscillate at a faster rate than before. Gabriel shortly felt that he was sinking and he nearly stumbled over with Dark Star. It was then that radio static hissed through his comm. station.  
"Dark Star...Raven, do you hear me?"  
"Nell?"  
"Phobos' orbit just altered, it's falling towards the surface." Gabriel knew then that Klein had tied his own bio-signs in with the alien machine, that its body was some how in synchronous operation with the station.  
"Raven! You must stop Phobos at all costs."  
"But I don't how."  
"Raven...you're breaking up...I" The comm. system went out as Phobos' orbit fell further and further away from Nell's source of transmission.  
Gabriel heard another transmission break through: "Raven...destroy the orbit control mechanism. Phobos will stop once you do so." Within his fallen weapon, Klein waved his hand over an image of a bare wall and a door materialized right before Gabriel's eyes. Dark Star boosted towards the fallen Raven and Gabriel whispered:  
"Thank you Klein. Somehow I knew...I knew there was still good in you."  
"Raven...I only ask of you one thing?"  
"Name it."  
"All my life I took the lives of those Ravens and not once did I ever see their faces..." Gabriel knew what Klein asked of him before he could utter the rest of his request. In that instant Gabriel crouched down over Klein's fallen machine and Dark Star's chest porthole slid open. Within in his machine, Klein saw Gabriel's face for the first and last time on his viewer; he slid his finger tips along the outline of Gabriel's cheek and realized that this was a face he had known a long time ago...his own. Gabriel's azure eyes still radiated with the passion of battle; his lank black hair with not a single thread of iron gray and his smooth brow unwrought by the wrinkles of time.  
"My name is Gabriel, Gabriel Reeves and you've been my hero all my life."  
"It's your turn now to be a hero. Go! Save Mars!"  
Gabriel activated Dark Star's OB system and shot past the door, which opened before him. Within, two massive columns that extended from the ceiling and the floor converged at a center where spatial waves distorted the image of the room. Gabriel took aim at the very focus of the spatial distortions with the KARASAWA, but he discovered that he had exhausted all his ammunition. Gabriel could not find any control interface to deactivate the orbit control mechanism; Klein tied all control into the now destroyed alien machine. Gabriel suddenly remembered those Ravens in the Arena who did not take defeat so kindly; he remembered when they tried to blow themselves up, along with the ones who defeated them. Gabriel knew what he had to do, but he did not like it one bit. He flew with Dark Star to the center of the spatial distortions and plunged its talons into the floor, securing Dark Star in place.  
"Dark Star I need your help, we have to stop Phobos from falling."  
"I understand Gabriel...I know." Without Gabriel's command, Dark Star initiated a countdown sequence that flashed across the video screen; it read ten minutes and continued to drop.  
"Raven, you will not die here today." A vermilion silhouette stood at the entrance; it was Klein's AC. Klein watched Dark Star through his AC's incandescent blue eye while still trapped within the broken alien machine. Klein's view screen then produced an image of another bare wall and he waved his arm over the screen; another door opened.  
"Go now, your path is clear...Gabriel." These were the last words that the former Nine breaker uttered after which there was only hissing over Gabriel's comm. Gabriel snatched a magnetic grappling rope from his utility compartment. The porthole in Dark Star's chest open up and Gabriel tossed one end of the rope over; he attached the magnetic end to the hull. He wrapped his hands and legs around the rope and worked half way down it; he slid the rest of the way and dropped to his feet. Nine minutes flashed across Dark Star's screen. Gabriel pulled the magnetic grappling rope free and made a mad dash to Klein's AC. He ran behind Klein's AC where he saw the cockpit entry port in the upper back. He drew up the bundle of rope and swung the magnetized end of it in circles. He then cast the magnetic head in an arc, but he overshot it. "Shit!" Seven minutes and twenty seconds flashed across the monitor. He gathered up the rope again, swung it around, cast it against the upper back of the AC and nailed it.  
He jumped up a little and grabbed the rope with both hands, while he pushed his way up with his feet. He made it to the entry port, which slid open as he approached it; he climbed in and all the systems lit up around him like shimmering jewels. He locked his telemetry suit's hip ports into the AC's extension ports and he secured his position. Five minutes flashed across his former AC's screen. Gabriel was finally at the helm of the one AC he had watched in action all of his life, but the sacrifice at which he had acquired it quelled any rising emotions. Gabriel's new AC turned its incandescent blue eye towards Dark Star's direction and Gabriel whispered: "Good bye, old friend." Dark Star could only stare back with its ruby eye as it stayed within the mechanism's field, like a child obeying a parent who was abandoning him.  
Gabriel boosted to where Klein's body should have been, only to find one of the massive columns shattered and strewn across the floor. He tried picking up the immense fragments, but not even Klein's former AC had the pneumatic strength to do it. The wedge of the piece he had forked up simply slammed down again amongst the rest of the wreckage. He scanned for any bio-signs but could not penetrate the alien mineral that composed the column. Dark Star transmitted a signal to Klein's old AC and it read: 3:20. Gabriel got the message and adjusted the AC's Over Boost system for a maximum burning capacity; he rerouted all available power, even his life support to the OB thrusters. Gabriel saw the path that Klein had opened up for him, it lead straight through the outer crust. He boosted towards the doorway and stood at its threshold; he saw rings of light dart through and illuminate the tunnel.  
He activated the Over Boost system and the golden plume from the thrusters launched him forward. He started catching up to the pace of the ringed lights, then it was as if he was standing still with them, and soon enough they seemed to go backwards. The radiator threshold warning system lit up and the generator started to overheat; soon, the entire AC's interior hull was over one hundred and twenty degrees. Gabriel's telemetry suit started to look like a wet suit, as his sweat managed to penetrate the suit's dense fibrous layers. The telemetry suit, which some pilots nicknamed the "smart suit," released controlled liquid nitrogen throughout the suit's interior networks. It helped Gabriel a little, but only a little as the temperature of the AC's interior hull continued to climb and Gabriel choked on the little air that remained. He started to close his eyes, but then he gaped them open again and managed to glance at the countdown screen that read: 1.07. As the weight of his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, Gabriel could have sworn that there was yellow light glowing all around him.  
His AC continued to hurtle ceaselessly through space even after he had escaped the exit point. The counter on his screen read: 0:53. The only thing that stopped his advance was an energy beam that struck the OB thrusters and took them offline. The trajectory of the beam came from a sniper rifle in the hands of a sleek, deep-blue colored AC that hung in space. The counter read: 0:50. This AC fired its own OB thrusters and managed to reach Gabriel's position within seconds. The AC threw its arms under the crimson AC's own, holding on to the Core; it reignited its OB thrusters and cleared Phobos' proximity. The counter on Klein's former AC read: 0:40. The deep-blue AC and the sleeping crimson AC reached a pickup transport that waited for them with its hangar door open. The deep-blue AC with Klein's former AC in its arms, boosted up and inside while the hanger door pulled shut behind them.  
The pilot of savior AC yelled, "Let's get the hell out of here!" The engines of the transport erupted with blue light and the transport cut through space, with Phobos shrinking in view behind them. The counter read: 0:20. As the last few seconds of the counter ran off, Gabriel started to regain consciousness as he could breath fresh air coming into his AC. "Take it easy Dark Star, you're in safe hands."  
"Nell?"  
Three, two, one...Dark Star's generator deactivated its isolinear confinement beam around the hydrogen atom in the water molecule. A nano- laser beam replaced it and it split one of the hydrogen atoms in the molecule chain. Dark Star ceased to exist in seconds and the blast created a cascade effect throughout Phobos. Fire-red veins streaked across Phobos' surface and soon the entire moon became a glowing ember. A brilliant white light stretched out for miles around the diameter of the moon, while the shell of Phobos shattered, hurtling rocks that looked like falling stars to the surface of Mars.  
Just days after the destruction of Phobos, Earth Government fully withdrew all its remaining forces from Mars. Earth Government reasoned that in light of recent events and the fact that it would take years before they could rebuild their forces, it would be better to give the Ravens what they wanted.  
The Corporations and their constituents declared their Independence from Earth and the Raven's Nest found a new home on Mars. Nell Aulter left the Earth Government after the dissolution of NERVES Concord; she became a Raven once more. Gabriel Reeves went on to defend his title of Nine breaker in both the Arenas of Earth and Mars. Although many of Klein's loyalists tried to take him down in the Arena, many others still feared him as they whispered: "There's the Raven who took down Leos Klein." After he had won all the credits and glory he ever wanted, he retired his title of Nine breaker and left the Raven's Nest. Gabriel settled down to a real life; he married, had children, and watched life go by. When life became too predictable, too slow, he would slip into his Armored Core and tell his wife he went "out of town."  
The historians of Earth recorded Leos Klein as a terrorist who sought to unravel the very fabric of Democracy when he single-handedly destroyed their forces. The historians of Mars recorded him as a liberator of the people from the hands of the oppressive Earth Government. On the highest peak of Olympus Mons, a vermilion silhouette still casts its incandescent blue eye at a yellow star that shines upon them all.

_Dedicated to Shoji Kawamori, a rebel in our own time_


End file.
